


A Sequence That You Never Learned

by patster223



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Backstory, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grieving, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7745125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patster223/pseuds/patster223
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucas isn’t sure if he knows how to live in a world without his mother—let alone how to do <em>good</em> in that world. </p><p>Thankfully, the Miller family has always been pretty good at learning as they go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sequence That You Never Learned

**Author's Note:**

> The fic's title is from the song Night Sky by Chvrches.

Before the Bureau—before the crystal kingdom, before the Cosmoscope, and even before Lucas could _walk_ —Maureen would hoist Lucas against her hip and take them as far from the city as they could get: out to where the fields grow wild, the bugs hum in excitement, and the stars shine in full, unobstructed brilliance.

As soon as Lucas can manage complete sentences, he asks, “Why do we come here?”

“Always asking questions,” Maureen says fondly—like it’s something to be proud of. But the sigh that precedes her answer is weighed down by exhaustion, not praise. “There…There are so few places in which to find peace in times like these, Lucas. We must cherish the ones we have.”

Lucas can’t really see Maureen’s eyes in the darkness, but this would have been before the war ended—before the Bureau numbed the world’s self-inflicted aches. He doesn’t think that he imagines the tears shining in her eyes.

“You’re sad,” Lucas realizes with a frown. “I…no, you can’t be sad.”

“Of course I can,” Maureen says, her voice low and a bit wet. “Want to know why?”

“Why?”

Maureen pulls Lucas into her lap. She points to the sky, so that when Lucas follows her hand, his gaze turns toward the stars.

“I can be sad,” Maureen says, “because I know that there’s something else waiting for me out there.”

Lucas squints at the sky. “You mean…the stars?”

“ _Stars_ upon stars,” Maureen whispers gleefully, curling her other hand into Lucas’ side until he begins giggling. “And planets upon planets, solar systems upon solar systems, galaxies upon galaxies!”

“Galaxies upon galaxies!” Lucas whispers reverently.

“Yes,” Maureen says with an emphatic nod. “It’s all out there, waiting for us to discover and know—no matter how sad we are.”

 _Galaxies upon galaxies,_ Lucas marvels, listening raptly as Maureen teaches him to identify the twinkling stars that await them out there.

 

***

 

After the Philosopher’s stone, the battle of Lucas’ lab, and—well, everything else, Lucas gives himself a half an hour to rest. He knows he told Magnus he’d get right out of there, but he just…

He’s just been shocked back to life by his mother’s ghost after nearly dying at the hands of his own robots. He thinks he deserves a bit of time.

The lab is ruined beyond repair. Robot parts—though few arms, weirdly enough—litter the floor; smoke rises from their bodies. Bits of the ceiling keep caving in and, given how the floor groans, Lucas doesn’t have much time before the whole structure does the same.

The robot he built for Maureen lies still on the floor. The exposed circuitry in her— _its,_ it is not her, it was _never_ going to be her no matter how badly Lucas wanted that—wrists fizzles, sending glowing sparks into the darkness of the lab.

Lucas rubs his aching, blistering chest. He ends up leaving the lab after only twenty minutes. Clouds obscure the sky, snowflakes obscure his vision. His trek through the storm is slow and stumbling.

 

***

 

Lucas and Maureen can only evade the War for so long before it comes to them. Lucas is of age by then. He’s old enough to push past the dry heat filling his lungs and the boiling dread curdling in his stomach so that he can try to help.

But he _can’t._ Their city is ablaze; smoke chokes every road and alleyway. Fire spits out of a column of flame that rises _hundreds_ of feet into the sky. There is no robot for Lucas to build, there is nowhere to run: there is _nothing_ that he can do.

The column of flame flares an ugly, burning white. Lucas’ head spins just from looking at it. He sways where he stands. The only thing that saves him from collapsing is Maureen’s steadying arms.

“We—we have to get to the elevator,” Maureen says.

“W-what?” Lucas manages, gagging on smoke halfway through the word.

“Get to the elevator!” Maureen yells, grabbing Lucas by the hand and dragging him across the scorched earth to the outset of town: toward the elevator they’d built for the city’s watchtower. They tumble into it, Lucas’s face smashing against the metal wall while Maureen scrambles for the buttons. The column of flame shines even brighter, eroding the entire landscape, and then—

The door closes. It saves them from destruction, but not from the anguished, screaming cries that rise from the column of flame. The sound is so loud that is echoes throughout Lucas’ skull, rebounding there until his _teeth_ ache.

When he can finally hear again, there is only the labored breathing of him and Maureen.

Maureen is still leaning against the elevator’s buttons. Lucas can only see the curve of her soot-stained back, can only hear the shallow exhales of her breath. This lasts for only a moment; then, Maureen is standing up straight and prying the doors open.

The doors are too melted to open all the way. Halfway through, they collapse and ooze to the ground, revealing a city destroyed: everything turned to black, volcanic glass. Only the outskirts of town—and their little Miller elevator—are spared.

“It’s just…gone,” Lucas says. “The lab, the city, t-the people…There’s not even _ash_ —how is this even _possible_ —”

“Enough,” Maureen breathes. She sinks to her knees and bows her head; and Lucas realizes that she isn’t speaking to him. Rather, her words seem directed right at the polished glass that has the audacity to innocently reflect the stars above. “No more of this. No more destruction, no more spending our time working on elevators—this needs to stop.”

“H-how? We don’t even know what we’re supposed to _stop_ , how—how _can_ we even stop something that can turn a whole town into glass?”

Maureen lays a palm flat against the ground. She rubs her hand along the polished surface before curling it into a fist—and Lucas suddenly is hit with how different this is from their others nights beneath the sky. Sure, they still wonder what else out there waits for them—but now, Lucas knows that fire and dread lie in wait behind some of those discoveries.

Maureen pushes herself to her feet. She tears her gaze away from the glass and toward Lucas.

“There will be others like us,” Maureen says. “People who want to end this war once and for all. They’re out there _somewhere_ —we just need to find them.”

Lucas tries to take a step toward her, but nearly slips on the glass. Maureen takes his hand, steadies him, and leads him back toward the edge of town.

 

***

 

For the first month after the crystal kingdom incident, Lucas bounces from town to town. It’s what Maureen and he did when they were displaced by the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet: wander until they found people and projects that could give them purpose again.

After being displaced yet again, Lucas can’t help but do the same now. Except that he doesn’t seem to be very good at it without Maureen by his side.

 _Just like with everything else,_ Lucas thinks, kicking a rock into the street and startling one of the children playing there.

Lucas winces. He has to leave this town soon. Already, the people here whisper about him behind his back. And no wonder: Lucas has no charisma, no rustic hospitality—he’s a former _necromancer,_ for Pan’s sake. The only thing that he can offer is his mechanical knowhow, and that’s barely enough to earn himself food and lodgings.

Lucas grits his teeth. Before he’d parted ways with the reclaimers, Magnus had said, _do good._ But _fuck,_ couldn’t he at least have told Lucas _how_ to do that?

 _There will be others like us._ _People who want to end this war once and for all_. _They’re out there somewhere—we just need to find them._

But what are you supposed to do when those people don’t even _want_ you? What do you do when the only person who _ever_ wanted you—the only person who even spoke your _fucking language—_ is—

Lucas begins walking back to his lodgings. It’s time to pack up and go.

 

***

When Lucas is old enough to make his first robot, it is not a particularly successful enterprise. Specifically, it ends with him shrieking for Maureen while the thing corners him in the testing room.

Which, of _course._ His mother invents _anti-gravity,_ and he can’t even make a fucking robot.

“I do not find this to be an acceptable answer!” the robot says. Its eyes gleam red.

“It was a philosophical question; there _is_ no right answer!” Lucas cries. He throws himself onto the floor to dodge another blast from the room’s flamethrowers.

“There must always be a right answer. Otherwise, why would you program me, Hodge Podge, a robot designed to assess right and wrong answers to questions?”

“Got me there,” Lucas mutters under his breath.

“Correct answer.”

The air grows heavy with crackling heat. Lucas squeezes his eyes shut and braces for impact, but before he can be fried to a crisp, a loud _zap_ echoes throughout the room. When Lucas cracks an eye open, he finds Maureen standing over a fallen Hodge Podge.

“Lucas?” Maureen pants, pocketing the stun gun with which she’d taken out Hodge Podge. “Are you okay? What _is_ this thing?”

“Mom!” Lucas cries, scrambling to his feet. “I’m—shit, I’m so _sorry._ I didn’t tell you about Hodge Podge because I wanted him to be a cool surprise, but he just got out of control and I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t—”

Maureen’s arms envelop Lucas in a warm, nearly crushing hug. Lucas’ tears spill onto Maureen’s tunic, but she either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as she pulls him in even tighter.

“Lucas,” Maureen says. “He was _amazing._ ”

Lucas blinks. He was expecting an admonishment at the very least, not—not this.

“Uh…” Lucas says. “Are we talking about the same robot? Because it just tried to _kill_ me.”

Maureen gives a low chuckle. “Lucas, do you know how many elevators nearly killed your grandfather before he finally got it right?”

“Well yeah—he only made a whole museum about it.”

“He made that museum so that his successes _and_ his failures can be learned from. That’s _why_ we leave legacies, Lucas. Someday, Hodge Podge can go in a museum of his own,” Maureen says, stepping away from Lucas so she can peer at the fallen robot.

“Yeah?” Lucas says. He kicks at Hodge Podge’s chest. “I wonder what people could learn from him.”

“All sorts of things—especially if we give it another shot.” Maureen pulls a screwdriver from her pocket and leans down to examine Hodge Podge’s circuits. “It’s the Miller way to make mistakes until we find our way, you know. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t ask me for help when you need it. Okay?

Lucas nods. It’s only years later, when his lab is full of contagious crystal and incensed ghosts, that Lucas realizes that Maureen never said whom he should ask for help if she wasn’t around.

 

***

 

A few months into his exile, Lucas finds himself in Gold Cliff. It’s not a good idea to go to there, not when Lucas is trying to stay under the radar. But he finds himself drawn to the gouges in the race track, to the thunderstruck spires of the buildings, to the nicks that vines once ripped into the bank’s façade: to any evidence that corresponds to the damp, hollow ache in Lucas’ chest left by a Grand Relic.

It’s night time when he finally makes his way to the center of the city. Lucas stares at the cherry blossom tree standing proudly in the square, its branches shifting gently in the breeze.

As far as trees go, it really is the prettiest one Lucas has ever seen.

Lucas sits gingerly beneath it, wondering if he’s even _allowed_ to sit under a tree that was once people. But around the trunk there are crumbs left by food and rings left by games of hoop-and-stick: evidence of life that moves playfully around this tree.

Lucas peers through the branches. Through a ceiling of flower petals, Lucas can see slivers of sky. The stars are obscured by clouds and light pollution, but they’re still there. Lucas can even make out constellations. Perhaps if he looked hard enough and got very lucky, he could even find a planet.

Lucas’ throat seizes. Months of walking with his eyes trained to the ground, months of working until his fingers bleed, months of silently drifting from place to place—all of it overwhelms him at once, filling him with a weight so heavy that Lucas is surprised that he doesn’t sink beneath the earth. Lucas tries to swallow back his tears, tries to push back at the heaviness threatening to consume him. But he—he’s just not _strong_ enough. The dam inside him breaks, his emotions wash over him like a wave, and he starts sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” Lucas gasps, wondering if those words even _mean_ anything anymore. “I’m under your tree and I can’t even keep it together for _one second_ , I’m so…”

He interrupts his own apology with another hiccuping sob. Words can’t fit in-between his tears, so Lucas stops bothering. He cries into his knees, letting his tears and snot stain the fabric beyond repair. The whole fit is ugly and loud: like the heaviness that’s been building inside Lucas for months finally decided to burst and spill its grotesque contents everywhere.

But just as Lucas wonders if this rupture inside him will _ever_ subside—a cherry blossom falls onto his shoulder. And then another falls. And then another, until Lucas wipes his eyes so that he can see the tiny succession of petals floating down to encircle his shoulders.

The petals feel warm on Lucas’ skin. Touching them replaces the heaviness inside him with something bright and flickering.

“Thank you,” Lucas says, gently cupping a blossom in his hands. “I just…I really miss her, you know?”

The tree sighs loudly as it sways in the wind. Lucas makes a noise that’s half-sob, half-laugh.

“Yeah,” he sniffles. “Yeah, I know you know.”

The tree and Lucas sit quietly until the stars dwindle in the sky, until the reds and pinks of dawn appear on the horizon.

“I just don’t know what to do anymore,” Lucas admits. His voice is only a whisper, barely there after all that crying.

The tree is silent and, for a moment, Lucas thinks that their conversation has ended. But then another wind picks up, whisking a handful of petals upward. They sway and float beside the remaining stars as the wind buffets them high into the air.

“There’s something else waiting for us out there,” Lucas recites under his breath. “No matter how sad we are.”

The blossoms float back to the ground. A few land a Lucas’ feet. He admires them for a moment longer before standing up, bowing to the tree, and moving onward.

 

***

 

After they moved to their hovering laboratory, Lucas would often find Maureen on the roof of the building. She would sit on the edge and stare at the sky as her feet swung over the Stillwater Sea.

Maureen used to take Lucas down to that sea. They would ride Upsy down until mere feet separated them from the water. The sea was so calm that Lucas could always see his reflection—until Maureen would push him into the water and then jump in after him. Lucas would retaliate by splashing—or by making a robot specifically designed to splash—and by the end of the afternoon, they would end up sputtering and laughing as they swam to shore.

They haven’t gone swimming in a long time. Forming the Bureau has taken up most of their time over the past few years.

“Venus is out tonight,” Lucas observes, sitting down next to her.

“And Mars,” Maureen says. She swings her feet to an invisible metronome. “Planets upon planets, solar systems upon solar systems—”

“Galaxies upon galaxies,” Lucas finishes with a smile.

“And even more than that,” Maureen murmurs. “Planes upon _planes,_ Lucas. There’s even more to the world than we thought there was—isn’t it amazing?”

When Maureen talks about the planar system like this, her eyes shine: not with tears, but with awe at the very opportunity to _know_ about the planar system. With her arms spread out behind her, she sits beneath the stars as if she were the guest of a gracious host.

“It’s amazing,” Lucas marvels.

Maureen lies down so that she’s parallel to the sky. “I wonder what else we’ll find when the Cosmoscope is ready.”

“Maybe there’s something even bigger than planes!” Lucas suggests.

Maureen smiles. It’s a bit wan, even under the starlight. Perhaps this has been too taxing for her: this business with the Bureau and building the Cosmoscope. They’ll take a long break after the Bureau’s work is done, Lucas decides. They’ll go to some field for a few weeks and chart the stars, the planets, the solar systems, the galaxies—and everything beyond.

“I think I’d like that,” Maureen says finally. “If there were something even bigger. There’s always something new to find, isn’t there?”

There is. It’s only too late that they discover that that _something_ doesn’t always turn out so well for the Millers. But, somehow, that doesn’t stop Lucas from drawing comfort from Maureen’s mantra. Perhaps that, more than anything, is proof that he is a Miller: that he is his mother’s son.

 

***

“Hey.”

Lucas startles at the greeting, nearly upending his drink. It’s…It’s been a while since anyone spoke to Lucas outside of necessary conversation.

“Uh…” Lucas nods toward the speaker: a half-elf sitting a few bar stools away. “Hi.”

“I’ve seen you around town,” the half-elf says. “Never in here though. My name’s Briar.”

“Lucas. And, I, um…” Lucas shrugs. “I’m just in town for work, I guess. Not really one for the bar.”

“Except tonight?” Briar asks.

Lucas is tempted to snap at Briar, to tell them off for prying into his business, but…Lucas is too tired for that. He’s tired of the heaviness that weighs down his heart—and of the aching pressure in his ribs that comes from hiding that weight from the world.

“My…” Lucas swallows heavily. “My mom passed away. A few months ago, as of today.” It hurts to say—it always will—but Lucas nearly startles again when the words don’t feel quite like shards of glass against his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Briar says softly. They raise their glass. “Here. What was something your mother loved?”

“Um…the stars,” Lucas says. “She loved the stars and the planets and…all of that stuff.”

Briar clinks their glass gently against Lucas’. “To the stars. And to your mother.”

Lucas clinks his glass to Briar’s and then downs the rest of his drink. He thanks every deity in the divine plane that Briar doesn’t comment upon his sniffles. In fact, Briar doesn’t push Lucas to say anything more. They let Lucas wallow in his grief.

Lucas can barely stand by the end of the night, and Briar ends up walking him home. Lucas slurs out the names of constellations as Briar holds him up; and then slurs out monologues as Briar asks him questions about the stars.

It’s…not as crushing a night as it should have been. Maybe that’s why Lucas decides to keep coming back to the bar every now and again.

That and…after meeting Briar, it hits Lucas how much he’s missed _talking_ to someone, as opposed to lying to or negotiating with them. Sure, talking to the bar’s regulars isn’t talking to—to Maureen, but. It’s almost enough to ease something hot and frantic that’s been stirring inside Lucas ever since the Cosmoscope accident.

Lucas is looking for some of that ease tonight. It’s been a long week of monotonous repair work that’s left his mind foggy and full of static. He has a book in hand, fully intending to spend the night reading in a corner booth. But as soon as Lucas walks into the bar, he’s struck by a wall of bright, rippling music.

Lucas covers his ears, trying to orient himself in the packed bar. Briar has already spotted him and, before Lucas knows it, they drag him further into the bar.

“What is this?” Lucas yells.

“It’s dance night!” Briar says. They place a steadying hand on Lucas’ shoulder. “Come on, Lucas, we can talk about your book later. For now—just live a little?”

Lucas harrumphs. He lives plenty, thank you very much.

Except…that’s probably not always true. Lucas sighs, but he slowly pulls his hands away from his ears and listens to the music. It’s not a melody he recognizes—which makes sense, given that Lucas hasn’t spoken to a bard in months—but it’s repetitive enough that it’s easy to sway to its beat.

“There you go,” Briar says with a grin. Their dark eyes shine under the bar’s lights, twinkling like stars. They playfully bops along to Lucas’ stilted, _horrid_ rhythm and Lucas ends up snorting in laughter.

Lucas’ heart squeezes tightly as he realizes that he hasn’t laughed like that since he was last pushed into the Stillwater Sea. But the memory doesn’t rip through Lucas’ mind like he expects it to: instead, it floats gently to the surface before Lucas is pulled back to reality by Briar’s own snorting laughter.

Apparently, Lucas’ dumbstruck face is something to _behold,_ which Briar keeps giggling about until Lucas can’t help but join in: until they’re both laughing too hard to do much more than clutch each other for balance on the dance floor.

Lucas leaves the bar with promises to discuss his book with Briar later that week. On his way home, Lucas finds himself wandering aimlessly, which isn’t something he’s done since the Cosmoscope accident. Lucas’ walks had been entirely functional: just to get from point A to point B. It hurt too much to put one foot in front of the other for them to be anything _but._

But now, he just walks. He inhales the damp, spring breeze drifting through the town. He steps around piles of snow slush, though his boots end up soaked despite his efforts. Lucas’ gaze drifts from the ground to the trees, to the sky, to—

Huh. Lucas squints. There’s a building on the edge of town that he’s never noticed before—probably because it’s too far away from the bar or his lodgings for Lucas to have ever come across. From the distance, it appears to be a tidy little cabin, but as Lucas gets closer, he notices the rot in the wood, the ice crusting over the windows, and the dead weeds matting the sidewalk.

“Every town needs a derelict cabin, huh?” Lucas murmurs. He pulls out a set of tools from his pocket, ready to pry the door open—but the lock has already rusted away. The door swings inward at a mere touch.

Inside, the cabin doesn’t look much better. The floor is filthy: smothered in dirt, animal droppings, and bits of detritus left by squatters and previous inhabitants.

But—the ceilings are high, the foundation is strong, and the space is wide and open. It wouldn’t make for a bad lab. Lucas’ mind begins mapping out where he could put his equipment: a work bench there, a tool station here, a place to store trash over there…

Lucas runs his hand along the wall until he reaches the other side of the room. He sits down on the edge of a rickety desk. When he looks up, he can see a sliver of sky through a hole in the ceiling.

Lucas smiles. He only has a few gold pieces and a pouch of tools to his name. He has none of the resources or contacts or infrastructure that he once had at the Bureau. This cabin, this town: it’s no city of industry, no sprawling Bureau campus, no laboratory hovering above the sea.

But it’s a pretty okay start.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
